Chapter 4 The Price of Fire

The rain hadn’t stopped since the tunnels collapsed.

It fell like a cleansing that never reached deep enough washing the blood but not the sin.

Mira and I holed up in an abandoned transit station. Flickering lights. Cracked tiles. The hum of a city that never slept, only waited. I could still feel Selienne’s presence under my skin, like static that wouldn’t fade.

Mira crouched beside a broken vending machine, prying open its panel. “You ever gonna tell me what happened back there?”

I was sitting on the steps, blade across my knees, staring at the faint ember still pulsing along its edge. “You wouldn’t believe me.”

“Try me.”

Eryndor’s voice slid through my mind again. She wouldn’t survive knowing the truth. Few do.

I gritted my teeth. “It was a witch. Powerful one. Name’s Selienne.”

“The one with the moon-hair and cryptic insults?” Mira pulled a wire, sparks crackling. “Yeah, I got the vibe she wasn’t friendly.”

“She bound him,” I said softly.

“Bound who?”

I hesitated. The air shifted heavy, expectant. “The dragon.”

Mira froze, eyes flicking to me. “Come again?”

Eryndor chuckled inside my skull. Careful what you confess, little thief.

“She bound him,” I repeated. “To me. To my blood. That’s why I can… do what I do.”

Mira straightened slowly. “So, when you lit up like a human flamethrower back there”

“That was him.”

Her jaw tensed. “And he’s just… hanging out in your head?”

“More like sharing the lease.”

You make it sound so mundane, he said. We are entwined beyond flesh, Kaia. My flame is your pulse now.

“Stop talking like a bad poem,” I muttered.

Mira blinked. “Talking to him again?”

“Yeah. He’s chatty tonight.”

“Great.” She pulled out a dusty pack of chips from the machine and tossed it my way. “Eat. You look like hell.”

I caught it, barely. My hands were trembling from exhaustion, maybe, or from the lingering echo of power that refused to settle.

Outside, thunder rolled. The storm was moving inland, but it wasn’t natural. I could feel the energy humming through the air a magical current that prickled against my skin like a warning.

Something was coming.

We rested in uneasy silence until the station lights flickered once, twice… then went out.

Mira swore under her breath. “Power grid’s down again. That’s the third blackout tonight.”

“Not just the grid,” I said. “Something’s draining it.”

Eryndor’s tone sharpened. They found you.

A sound echoed soft footsteps on wet stone. Slow. Deliberate.

I stood, sword half-drawn. Mira aimed her gun toward the dark. “Friend of yours?”

“If it is,” I said, “they didn’t RSVP.”

The air shifted colder, heavier. And then I saw it.

A figure stepped into the glow of Mira’s flashlight hooded, face hidden behind a porcelain mask painted with black veins. The symbol of the Obsidian Order glimmered across their chest like oil.

“Kaia Vale,” the voice rasped distorted, mechanical. “By decree of the Council, you are to surrender your flame.”

“Tell the Council they can burn in line.”

The masked figure tilted their head. “Then so shall you.”

They raised a hand, and darkness spilled outward like liquid swallowing sound, swallowing light. My flame flared instinctively, pushing back against it, but it felt like fighting smoke with smoke.

Mira fired. The bullet vanished midair, dissolved into shadow.

“Run!” I shouted.

She hesitated just long enough for a tendril of black energy to lash out and hurl her into the wall. I lunged forward, blade igniting mid-swing. The steel cut through darkness and hit flesh the figure staggered but didn’t fall.

“Your fire is borrowed,” they hissed. “Soon it will be reclaimed.”

“Over my corpse.”

“That was the arrangement.”

They struck again this time with a blade of their own, curved obsidian, humming with corrupted magic. Sparks flew as metal met flame. Every clash rattled the air, each impact sending ripples through the station.

Eryndor’s power surged in me, hot and wild. Let go, he whispered. Let me show you how dragons kill.

“Not now”

You’re dying, little ember. There is no later.

Pain flared through my arm the enemy’s blade grazed me, slicing deep enough to draw blood. My knees buckled, heat rising uncontrolled.

I stopped resisting.

The world ignited.

Flame roared from my skin, golden-red and blinding. The masked figure screamed as their shadows burned away, the porcelain melting from their face a woman beneath, eyes black as pitch. She reached for me, whispering something that vanished in the crackling air.

Then she disintegrated ash scattered on the wind.

The fire died as fast as it came, leaving nothing but smoke and the reek of scorched metal. I collapsed, gasping.

Mira crawled out from the debris, eyes wide. “Remind me… to never piss you off.”

I stared at my hands they were trembling, glowing faintly from within. The burn had gone deeper this time. Too deep.

Eryndor was silent for once.

“Mira,” I said. “She said something before she died. Did you hear it?”

“Something about ‘The Ember Crown.’ Sounded like nonsense.”

I looked at the ashes still smoldering on the floor. “It’s not nonsense. It’s prophecy.”

We made it to the street an hour later. The storm had broken into a slow drizzle. Neon signs flickered across the skyline like half-broken prayers.

I could still taste ash in the back of my throat.

Mira walked beside me, coat soaked, gun holstered but ready. “So, what’s next? We got witches, shadow assassins, secret orders starting to feel like I should’ve stayed in IT.”

“You quit IT,” I said.

“Yeah, and now I hack crime syndicates for rent money. Really moving up.”

Despite everything, I almost smiled. “You’re good at it.”

She smirked. “Flattery from someone with a dragon inside her means a lot.”

We turned into a narrow alley that reeked of rain and old smoke. That’s when I saw it a mark burned into the brick wall. A circle of runes, glowing faintly red.

Eryndor stirred. A summoning sigil. Old. Dangerous.

Mira squinted. “It’s fresh. Someone wants you to see it.”

“Yeah,” I murmured. “But who?”

Before I could move, the runes flared brighter and then, all at once, they pulsed.

The ground shook. The wall split open like wet paper.

And from the light stepped Selienne.

Her hair glowed like molten silver. The rain hissed as it touched her. “I warned you,” she said, voice calm but edged with steel. “You’re drawing too much attention.”

“From who? The Order?”

Her gaze was colder than the storm. “From the things older than even them.”

Mira raised her gun again. “You following us now?”

“I’m protecting what’s left of the world.”

“By killing people in tanks?” I snapped.

Her eyes softened just for a moment. “They weren’t people anymore, Kaia. They were vessels. Failed ones.”

The fire inside me burned hotter. “Then what does that make me?”

Selienne stepped closer, unafraid of the heat. “You’re the only one that worked.”

For a moment, no one breathed.

Then she whispered, “The Ember Crown has chosen you. And the world will burn or be reborn through your choice.”

Before I could speak, she vanished flame dissolving into mist.

The rain fell again. The alley was empty.

Mira exhaled shakily. “So, just to confirm… you’re part dragon, chosen by a magical crown, and might accidentally end civilization?”

“Yeah.”

She blew out a breath. “Cool. Guess I’ll stock up on fire extinguishers.”

But my chest tightened. Because beneath the fear, the exhaustion, the chaos there was something else. A pull.

A hunger that wasn’t mine alone.

Eryndor’s voice returned, deep and ancient. The crown calls to its heir. You cannot run from what you are.

I looked up at the skyline, where stormlight danced across towers of glass. “Maybe not,” I said. “But I can damn sure decide what I’ll become.”

And somewhere beneath the city, something answered a low, thunderous growl that didn’t belong to the sky.